AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He's the longest driver on the planet's pro tours and the putting leader on the PGA Tour. He's a major-championship winner salivating over the flowering beauty and repressed rough of Augusta National Golf Club, which favors long drivers and deft putters.

So why doesn't anyone consider John Daly a serious Masters contender?

Maybe it's because Daly exhausted his lifetime supply of serious looks last year, after he skipped the Masters for another tour of the Betty Ford Clinic, after he staggered through a 14-hour binge at Sloppy Joe's Bar in Jacksonville Beach, mixing 7-Up and Seagram's 7 until he couldn't see The Players Championship highlights on the TV set a few feet away.

He returned to his hotel room and spun out of control once more. His third wife called for help. Shortly thereafter, she called a divorce lawyer.

DALY, AN OLD 31, ADMITTED his alcoholism for the first time in 1992, a year after he entered the PGA Championship as the ninth, absolutely final alternate and won. He took the treatment and friend Fuzzy Zoeller's advice about 19th-hole beverages. He bought enough chocolate to rebuild the infrastructure of Hershey, Pa. He smoked enough cigarettes to keep Tobaccoville humming. He drank enough Cokes to flood Rae's Creek.

And in one of golf's monumental surprises, Daly won the 1995 British Open, beating Constantino Rocca in a playoff after Rocca sank a tying 70-foot putt from off the 18th green at St. Andrews. That made Daly the fourth American since World War II with two major titles before his 30th birthday. The others: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson.

His career, like his life, consists of mercurial highs and depressing crashes, of broken records and shattered furniture. Daly tied for 19th in his first Masters and tied for third the next year, 1993. He finished 30 over par combined on his next three trips but never doused the notion that he could flourish at wide-open Augusta.

"I've always thought I should do well here, but my mind thing has never been too strong," Daly said after a practice round. "I've always felt I had the talent to win here, but I need the patience. I've always taken things for granted here. You can't take anything for granted here."

DALY POSTED 5-UNDER-PAR 283S IN HIS first two Masters, but his favorite memory flowed from Ian Woosnam's mouth. Woosnam, who has shut down a couple of pubs in his day, played all four rounds with Daly one year.

"He said it was the longest relationship I've ever had," Daly recalled, chuckling.

Daly's love-hate affairs with the bottle started long ago. They affected his fitness, concentration and desire. They interfered with his golf development and emotional maturation.

After tying for fourth at California's Nissan Open a month ago, Daly admitted alcohol burned his game. "Look," he said, "I went to the first tee in other years all sorts of ways. Sometimes bombed. Sometimes hung over. You name it, I've done it. ... I mean, I've played some great golf when I was drunk. I'm not going to lie about it. I felt I could make anything. It didn't matter if I had a driver hitting to a par-4. I felt I could make a 1. It was really weird. And then there were days I couldn't do anything."

After his latest treatment, Daly realized repeated relapses might destroy his ability to do anything, ever. He started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He stopped insisting that he could take care of his problem alone, with heavy doses of cigs, candy, Cokes, half wedges and full bets.

"The disease I have, I can go out and buy my death in a bottle," Daly said. "Other people have different diseases they have no control over. Mine, it's right around the corner if I want to go out and kill myself."

HE DOESN'T WANT THAT NOW. AUGUSTA National, his favorite course, keeps calling his golf spirit back.

"I wasn't going to play a practice round the day I got here," he said, "but I looked around and there was no way I wasn't going to play. This place sucks you in like a casino. It's like the way casinos used to suck me in."

Daly carries more than sentiment in his bag this week. He ranks No. 21 on the PGA Tour with $350,000. After missing the cut in his first event, Daly has tied for 12th, 39th, 16th, 18th, fourth, fourth, 53rd and 16th. He would have done better than 53rd at Bay Hill if not for the comical 18 he scored on the sixth hole the last day after hitting six balls into the water. Delete that 85 and his fourth-round scoring average would be 67.86

He leads the PGA with 1.694 putts per hole -- "a miracle" that he attributes solely to a statistical quirk. The putting stats include only the greens a player reaches in regulation.

But the fact remains that Daly can putt exquisitely. He has vowed to lag tricky approach putts on Augusta's marble-top greens rather than boldly chasing birdies, his usual harebrained philosophy here. He promises to remain patient even when he fails to birdie the par-5s rather than flying off the handle in defeatist self-pity.

"I'M JUST SO MUCH MORE AT PEACE," Daly said. "I'm not real excited. I'm not so much into the lows, which should make it a lot easier to be more mellow. ... My consistency of play is what I'm feeding on right now." Along with chocolates, it's a diet that has added 40 pounds and put him around 230.

Daly learned the putting lesson from Woods, who didn't three-putt a single green while breaking the scoring record last year. They are virtual equals off the tee, although Daly has won six of the past seven driving titles and leads Woods 301 yards to 294 this year.

Woods concedes that he outdrives Daly only under certain conditions. "Under normal ideal conditions, no," Woods said. "John flies the ball more than I do. If it's hard and fast like it is here, I'll turn the ball and roll it over and run it by him. But if it's like Pebble or anything soft on the West Coast, I have trouble hitting it that far."

A few years ago, Daly looked like the Augusta natural that Woods became on his third try.

"This course," Daly said, "is perfect for his game, as it is for mine. I just never had the putter going. That's what you have to have."

That and a clear head.